LIE is a novel for the today’s student reader – bringing with it a complex world view, of teenagers – and adults—making key, life-changing decisions to tell the truth or lie about a hate crime. As the author and as a someone with experience teaching English composition and literature at The City University of New York in Harlem, while completing my MFA in Fiction, I have attempted to outline key questions, which are culled from the Common Core standards for English language instruction in New York for grades 8-12. This Common Core guide for LIE, including summary of major themes, characters, and points of view, can be found at my website.

In some cases, I have added author's notes, which are hopefully insightful and directional, but certainly not the final word on the text  I am sure that there are close readers out there who will interpret the text in a more rigorous way than even the author.

I welcome hearing from you about your classroom experience with LIE.Find out more about LIE for the Common Core grades 8-12 at www.carolinebock.com. I'm eager to hear about your experiences with LIE in the classroom.

Yesterday, I had a wonderful opportunity to speak before the Suffolk County School Library Media Association (SSMLA) at their annual dinner. This talk before a smart, high-spirited group of school librarians, game me the chance to remember my high school school library at–New Rochelle High School.

My school library was a refuge for a geeky kid who liked to read – who was involved in her school’s literary magazine – and not much else – I was raised by a single parent, a father, who raised 4 kids along after my mother had a stroke and was left almost fully paralyzed and brain-damaged. We couldn’t afford to buy books in our house – but we didn’t need to buy them. There was the library, especially the school library.

You could find me there almost everyday after school.  I didn’t want to go home.  Home was chaotic. Home was loud. Home was where I, as the eldest daughter had to cook dinner and clean and do laundry and not stop until everyone was in bed and then, maybe I could escape and read more.

I have to admit that I don’t remember the librarians’ names – but I remember their kindness. I remember how they smiled when I checked out every novel by Ernest Hemingway after I read The Sun Also Rises in 10 grade English class.

One thing I do remember -- one stifling spring day, my study partner, David, leaned over to me and said, "I like you more than you think." But that’s a story for outside the library.

If you are a librarian or an educator, I've done something thinking about the Common Core for ELA Grades 8-12 and my young adult novel, LIE. I would appreciate your thoughts on my study notes -- at my website www.carolinebock.com.

And thank you school librarians, you should be mandated for every school, you are critical to our students success!

What a cool thing I discovered -- LIE was reviewed in this monthly educator bulletin for The Character Council of Greater Kentucky.  Now, as a writer, on first glance, I thought this was a writer's journal --i.e. development of fictional people in literature-- I have 10 distinct first person points of view in LIE and maybe someone in the Kentucky area thought this interesting.

But no, it's character as in a way to build ethics and values that we can all agree on like fairness, respect, trustworthiness,  and caring for one another -- themes that are at the heart of my debut young adult novel, LIE.   (We can agree that these are good things, right?  In our current political climate I often wonder!)

Here's the link to the Character Council of Greater Kentucky -- and you will find there a PDF of this amazingly insightful newsletter on building character in grades 1-12 -- www.charactercincinnati.org.

And here's an excerpt from their LIE review: "This novel is a smart, topical story about a racially motivated hate crime, its far-ranging consequences and the community determined to keep it under wraps..."

Cool, right?

Truly,

Caroline Bock

more about LIE

at www.carolinebock.com

Hey... I know it's the middle of the summer.... but it's one month until school starts here in New York (and yes, 21 days until publication of LIE on August 30th!!).  Are you a teacher like me:  Eager, eager to teach a new novel?  Focused on how narratives are constructed?  How character drives plot and theme?   I wrote with the good folks at St. Martin's Press a TEACHER'S GUIDE TO LIE.   So calling all English teachers (grades 8 and above):  Check out the TEACHER'S GUIDE TO LIE.  www.macmillan.com.